


Stress Relief

by lubbydub



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Masturbation, Pining, Power Dynamics, Tree Sex, Unrequited Crush, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 13:26:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14261952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lubbydub/pseuds/lubbydub
Summary: Meredith takes care of a need when camping in the Emerald Graves. That Orsino is at her back is but an inconvenience. It's only practical, after all.





	Stress Relief

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in an AU where the both of them made it out of Kirkwall and are now in the Inquisition's custody. And there's a little Solavellan in here, but it's not too important. Be gentle with me.

Maker, she's getting old.

 

Five years ago, she could've worn plate that was twice the weight of this and not slowed her stride. Granted, that there's a wounded Lavellan in equally heavy armor with an arm slung across her shoulders is adding to the burden, but Meredith likes to think she is stronger than this. Then again, not a lot is as she likes nowadays. She's alive when she should be dead, disgraced when she should have been celebrated, and sharing a side-- albeit tenuously-- with Orsino, of all the people that could have survived Kirkwall.

 

Annwil whimpers as Meredith steps carelessly over a log and jostles her broken and bruised ribs. She mutters an apology and ignores the brief admonishment coming from Solas on the inquisitor's other side, adjusting Annwil to rest more of her weight on her. Meredith has to pause for a moment, as her muscles and joints scream and adjust for the new balance, and she silently swears to herself to exercise more frequently, to eat more protein.

 

"Don't push yourself too hard. Neither of us can carry two warriors in full armor," Orsino mutters from somewhere behind them, sharing in her discomfort. He hasn't quite adapted to the physical demands of his new life, having spent most of it locked in a tower.

 

Meredith glares at the moss on the ground and counts to five, willing her aching, decrepit body to do as she says. The birds in the Graves chirp too happily, the sun comes through the canopy too bright, and everything is too  _ fucking _ much.

 

=

 

By the time they arrive at camp, Solas has ushered Annwil somewhere that the healers can tend to her, murmuring soft words of soothing and affection. Meredith doesn't plop herself down on the nearest bench, as every bone in her body is begging for, as it will mean that she is less resilient than her erstwhile archnemesis-- and her pride will not have that. She stands by the fire instead, away from Orsino who’s sat gratefully on that bench, gulping down mouthfuls of water from her canteen. Though it runs out, down her chin and neck, she cannot quite bring herself to care, and she allows herself that at least.

 

She drains it to the last drop, letting out a happy grunt and capping the canteen with a solid twist. She’ll have to go fetch more later, and she’ll offer to do it for the rest of the group as she always does, to spend less time around them, around her own thoughts. In Kirkwall, fatigue blocked all but the essentials from running through her mind. Here? Here among the Inquisition, where she is no leader but a follower, she has no duties to throw her tired self into. aside from being ready to answer Lavellan’s call when it comes.

 

And it does not come as often as she likes, as she needs.

 

Meredith often finds that she has far more free time than she knows what to do with, and when she is not avoiding the majority of the inhabitants of Skyhold, who are more than happy to voice their opinions over her atrocities when she shows her face, she is sat in her room. Resting. Reading. All those that are good for the soul and body, all those that leave her keenly aware of the emotions that she has labored so long to suppress. She cannot avoid them forever, she finds, when she has the time to eat and sleep and even view the flowers in the garden.

 

The worst of all are the feelings of need, of want. More than anything, she is  _ alone _ in the vast keep. The faceless soldiers and scouts that curse her name or spit at her feet, she does not care for. They say things that she has all heard before, that she has long accepted as part and parcel of her conviction. Nothing and no one is familiar, save for the dwarf-- Varric, his name is, the one glued to Hawke’s side-- and he is ambivalent towards her, if not outright hateful for being the cause of his friend being wanted by the Chantry. Cullen is there too, but the blood between them runs foul, and most days, the former Templars cannot stomach the sight of one another.

 

Who is left, but the former First Enchanter, the one she finds infuriating and alluring in equal measure?

 

Oh, she knows it sounds ridiculous. She and Orsino have been at each others’ throats for as long as she’s known him, and yet--

 

And yet she is--  _ has been _ \-- drawn to him. For what reasons, she doesn’t know; or perhaps doesn’t want to know. That would mean confronting and examining things that she does not want to, hurts that would be dredged up from the grave that she’s buried them in. But many things are not as she wants, or likes, and even those are clawing themselves from the earth like unholy demons.

 

She shakes herself away from those thoughts, coming back to herself at the fire. Annwil is lumbering back to sit gently by the crackling flames, with her canteen slung on her shoulder. Meredith takes it without a word, and she nods in thanks. Solas fills his own waterskin and usually does it when the others are about their own business; perhaps to grant himself solitude as well. All that's left is Orsino. When she turns to him, she finds him regarding her with a deep stare and an unreadable expression.

 

It doesn't happen often, that he doesn't wear his feelings on his face-- he's always been far too passionate for that. She's seen him seething and furious, on the brink of tears, and rarest of all: happy. This mask he wears now, one that is vaguely contemplative, unnerves her in her inability to decipher it. He gives up his canteen wordlessly as well, and she manages to tear her eyes from him to visit the nearby stream.

 

_ The worst is yet to come _ , she thinks. Solas being in their party means that he will want to share a tent with Lavellan, giving into that burgeoning romance between them that everyone can see. That leaves her with any of the Inquisition agents present at the camp  or Orsino, and most, if not all of them already have their partners. And she has no idea what mood he's in. It isn't as though he'll kill her in her sleep; he's too subtle for that. But it's the uncertainty that unnerves her. Try as she might, she cannot shake the old habit of being vigilant.

 

That, of course, and the fact that his presence in such a small space would arouse her terribly.

 

She won't pretend that it doesn't; she's given up that fight ages ago. But she hasn't…  _ relieved _ herself in a long time-- circumstances have kept her too busy to-- and if she has that added stimuli without an outlet for it, she's like to get herself killed tomorrow. Meredith is being practical about it; physical needs are needs, inconvenient and shameful though they might be for her. At the very least, she can be quiet about that.

 

She likes to think she's mastered her body that much.

 

=

 

When she comes back to the camp, the tents have been set up for the passing group. Solas and Lavellan are silhouetted in the candlelight flickering in their tent, closer than they need to be and talking in hushed, relaxed voices about the Fade. She pushes Annwil’s canteen through the bottom of the entry flaps, then turns to her assigned tent feeling like she would if she were staring down a hostile apostate. There is no light within, so Orsino must either be asleep, or more likely, trying to fall asleep so that he doesn't have to spend one conscious moment more in her presence than he has to. Meredith enters silently, and begins to quietly strip down her armor in the small space sectioned off from the bedrolls. She leaves it stacked neatly in a corner, away from his things, and braces herself with a deep breath.

 

Orsino has his eyes shut and his front turned to a wall of the tent, bundled tightly in the blanket provided. She looks over him for a long moment, straining her eyes in the dark to see if he truly is asleep. Her night vision isn’t as good as it used to be, one more thing lost to age. But she decides she’s been staring long enough, and there’s a heat already pooling in the pit of her stomach, which doesn’t give her high hopes for the rest of the night. Meredith shifts her bedroll further from his, so that she’s going to be almost flush against the other canvas wall, and settles in.

 

Andraste preserve her, her traitorous mind is already conjuring up her usual fantasy, and her flesh grows hot at her imaginings. His bony, elegant fingers tracing circles along her hips, the pouch of her lower belly, then over the tuft of blonde on her mound. She allows herself a minute indulgence, letting her fingers follow the same path. They aren’t the same; thick and calloused and not at all graceful or beautiful like his, but they will have to do. Meredith is hyper-aware of the presence at the other end of the tent, and suddenly this space is too small, and she swears she can hear him breathing as if they are pressed back to back.

 

That this arouses her further is surely indicative of some  _ depravity _ she must purge from herself-- but at a later date. When she shifts her thighs slightly, to allow her fingers to dip into her folds, she finds that she is already slick and wet. Meredith bites back a curse; this will make it much harder to keep unnoticed. It isn’t as though anyone could hear over the nighttime din of the insects chirping and buzzing, but it gives her comfort to be quiet. Her fingers spread herself and graze over her clit which perks to attention immediately. She allows herself a small hitch in her breath-- she could not have held it back anyway, with how sensitive she is at the moment. With another shift and her face half-burrowed into her pillow, she shuts her eyes and calls to mind whatever will speed this up with the subtle rubbing of her fingers; Orsino’s eyes darkened with desire and amusement, his hand between her clenching thighs, his voice in her ear whispering that  _ she looks so good, so pretty, come for me, come for me Meredith-- _

 

She cuts off her breathing just in time to choke back a gasp that would have been audible, her hips jerking forward once before she can stop herself. Meredith feels herself clench around nothing, aching for at least one finger, but she is already hoping that the abrupt shift of cloth hasn’t caught anyone’s attention, least of all that of the elf at her back. When her head is almost spinning from the lack of breath, when all she hears is the crickets, she slowly schools her breathing back to a steady pace and ignores the frantic pounding of her heart.

 

The flood of warmth and pleasure that pulses in her veins puts her to sleep mercifully quickly.

 

=

 

The next half a day passes without much incident, save for Orsino being more sluggish and inattentive than he usually is, and ought to be. She’s pulled him out of the path of a Freeman’s blade one too many times today, and now she’s narrowly saved him from taking a volley of arrows to his gormless face.

 

“What on earth is wrong with you?” she hisses, pushing him back roughly against the trunk of the thick tree that is shielding them from the enemy for now. Orsino blinks down at her, almost owlishly, gripping his three-headed staff to himself as if it will stop her from slapping the sense back into him. He opens his mouth, a flush colouring his cheeks, and for a brief moment, she has the suspicion he’s somehow heard her lapse in restraint from last night. A similar blush quickly rises from her neck at the same time her stomach drops, and her mouth goes dry. How could he have heard? Was she not quiet enough? Was he not as asleep as she’d thought?

 

Her fist clenches and scores marks in the ancient bark.  _ Fuck. _ She has no time to think of this now, and perhaps if she plays this off like nothing has happened, he will have the good sense to let it drop, as well.

 

Annwil leads them through abandoned Orlesian villas overgrown with ivy and nettle, killing or beating into submission the rebels they find, chasing down any leads to the Red Templars. It’s a sombre business, one that she gratefully accepts the distraction of. It may occur to her once or twice that Orsino drifts closer to her than he needs to be, or that he speaks over her shoulder to draw her attention to archers in the distance and ends up raising bumps on the skin below her ear instead, but she stubbornly pushes those out of her mind. It is simply that he does not wish to be killed due to his less-than-optimal performance today, and she is his next best chance of survival. Annwil is too small for him to cower behind, and she is far too occupied taking the offensive. Solas is out of the question entirely; the other elf has an odd distaste for the former First Enchanter, one that she does not and cares not to understand.

 

When Lavellan calls it a day and starts them towards camp, Meredith silently prays for the strength to keep her composure.

 

=

 

She follows her usual ritual when they arrive at a camp: hydrate, rest, collect the canteens and drop by the nearest source of water for an hour or two, until the sun has set and the rest of the camp will leave her to her solitary dinner.

 

As she lowers Annwil’s into the brook, a twig snaps behind her and she whirls around with a knife drawn from her belt.

 

Orsino pushes past the dangling vines and nearly trips over a root walking out of the shadow, and she rolls her eyes at him, though she doesn’t turn back to her task.

 

“Ask or say what you will and begone. I don’t need you to help me with filling the canteens,” she says brusquely, tossing his filled one back at him. He catches it with surprising deftness, taking his lower lip between his teeth in deliberation. Her eyes follow the motion for a split second, but it’s long enough that he notices. Orsino slings it over his shoulder, letting the canteen hang by his hip, and his hands anchor themselves nervously to the leather belt.

 

“Meredith, listen, I--”

 

She folds her arms, eyes boring into his with a fierce challenge that she hopes is not too guilty, and that it will maybe drive him back to the camp with his tail between his legs. He has ever been good at shrinking from her presence, after all. Orsino only steps closer, and her apprehension only grows. He still cannot find the words he wants, another rarity that unsettles her, but she clenches her fists in the crooks of her elbows and remains steadfast in the face of her own anxiety.

 

It fails when his hand reaches up to gently touch her hair, and she all but leaps backwards from him, her arms unfolding to defend herself. Water splashes around her boots and soaks the bottoms, but she is far more focused on the threat before her. Orsino frowns, and for once, he advances instead of retreats.

 

“I just-- did you honestly think I wouldn’t hear?”

 

_ Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. _

 

“You have to know elven ears are keen; I refuse to believe that you don’t. What is your game here? Why now, when we’re sharing a tent? Why now, when you never did before, Meredith?”

 

Oh Maker, of course he’s making it out to be more than a simple failure to control herself. Meredith blushes deep and red, so much so that she suspects she’s glowing, and grits her teeth.

 

“It has  _ nothing _ to do with you. Contrary to your beliefs, my life revolves around more than you.”

 

“I find that hard to believe,” he scoffs, “when you spent the better half of six years obsessing over my every move. What play do you even call this,  _ knight-commander? _ ”

 

When he throws her former title back in her face, she fails to suppress a flinch and snarls at him viciously in turn.

 

“What does it even matter to you? My-- My  _ needs _ are my own, and I’ll thank you to stay out of my  _ fucking _ business,” she snaps, falling back on the defensive. Orsino’s hands fall away from his canteen, and he steps forward. Meredith at least manages not to take a step back. He opens his mouth, and she expects some contrived reason for him to be so in her face about her private stress relief, for him to be so up himself that he thinks it  _ so obviously _ has something to do with unsettling him on purpose, that she does not expect him to lunge to kiss her with her jaw cupped in his palms.

 

Meredith has read before, in the few romance novels that she allowed herself, that she could stomach, that when an unexpected kiss is visited upon someone, their mind often goes blank, or stars explode behind their eyelids. She’s always thought it to be a literary device, an exaggeration to build the moment-- she doesn’t expect herself to actually fall victim to those two phenomena.

 

In the minute that her mind fails to respond coherently, she finds her mouth opening and her head slanting to accommodate him, her hands coming up to clutch desperately at his sleeves. Orsino groans against her lips and staggers back with her, drawing them out of the stream and against a nearby tree trunk. For a brief moment, she considers throwing away thought and just letting him kiss her, letting herself press against him needily, until his fingers brush under her ear and she shoves herself back a step.

 

“No, I-- We--” she stammers at the same time he growls and reaches for her again with a gravelly “ _ no you don’t _ ”. He spins them around with a strength she didn’t know he had, pressing her against the tree this time. She pushes back against his shoulder even as he tugs at her belt, hissing for him to wait and that they shouldn’t, and he silences her with another searing kiss. When his hand, his gorgeous, slender hand plunges into her breeches and strokes those beautiful fingers across her folds, she melts against the tree.

 

“Oh, fuck,” she gasps, dipping her head to hide her face. The hand that was pushing him away now pulls him closer, fisting tight in the silkweave. Orsino mutters a similar curse as he strokes her again, as if he’s pleased by the softness he finds. She wasn’t even aware until now that she’s gotten so wet, from kissing alone. Meredith jerks her hips forward at another glide of his fingers along the length of her slit, letting out a shameful whimper when his free hand spears through her hair and yanks her head back to expose her throat to his teeth.

 

“You have no idea what you’ve done to me,” he whispers, fervent and heated, nipping sure marks into her pale skin. “The whole time I could hear-- so wet, so  _ sweet _ . You must have known, you  _ must _ .”

 

He pushes the tips of two fingers shallowly into her, pulling back when she gasps in pain. Orsino pulls back to kiss her forehead, slipping his thumb down to rub against her clit instead. Meredith whines again, high-pitched and hoarse, pressing against him in want. He tries to push against her opening again, with one digit this time, and she sighs shakily into his shoulder as she parts for him. Orsino lets out a choked moan.

 

“So  _ tight _ , fuck--”

 

Meredith mouths at the edge of his high collar, not trusting her words to come out properly, urging him to push deeper, rub faster,  _ anything _ . His breath falls hot and heavy on her ear, followed by a light graze of teeth, and he crooks his finger to try to coax another precious moan from her. Her name is a fevered chant falling from his lips, sending sparks along her skin and mounting her pleasure higher and higher-- this is all she’s yearned for, all she’s ever wanted, and having everything she’s wanted might just kill her from how hard it’s making her heart pound. Orsino growls and shoves her back, eyes dark and intense. It’s all she needs to push her tumbling over the edge, jaw falling open in a silent cry and her eyes fluttering shut. Her walls clench tight around his digit, that crooks and crooks and milks her for all she’s worth, and she gasps and whines against his neck as she rides it out.

 

He wraps an arm under hers, around her back to press her closer, letting her twitch and jerk against him until she stills, panting straining gasps over his shoulder.

 

“Orsino,” she starts, with no idea how to finish, her voice smooth and dazed.

 

The foliage rustles from up the hill ahead of them, and Annwil’s voice calls out to the darkness for them. Meredith jumps, shoving at his wrist to pull him out of her breeches, but he takes advantage of her weakened knees and lowers her to sit at the base of the tree, among the brush. There’s a gleam in his eye that she can see even in the dim light of the dusk, and it fills her with both dread and excitement.

 

“Be quiet,” he whispers once, and that is all the warning she gets before he glides the joints of his fingers along her clit and sinks two fingers into her. She is still sensitive, still clenching lightly from the last climax he’s brought her to. Annwill calls again, and she brings up a gauntleted hand to bite the knuckle of, as he thumbs her clit roughly with his fingers knuckle-deep in her. There’s further noise, and she’s so sure they’ll be found, and she prays that Orsino gets some sense into his head and stops before they’re found in such an embarrassing state, but he doesn’t stop, neither does Annwil, and--

 

“Lethallin, they will return in time. Please, don’t strain yourself. You’re still hurt.”

 

Meredith is sure she can appreciate the sincerity and softness in Solas’s voice, were she not being relentlessly brought to another, harder orgasm by the man kneeling between her legs. Annwil hums, then turns back, rustling heralding her blessed return to the camp, away from them. Orsino returns his attentions to her fully, slanting an open-mouthed kiss across her lips, shoving his hand under the tight fit of her breastplate and fondling for her breast beneath the layers of chain and leather. As sensitive as she is, it somehow manages to send further shocks down her spine, and she cannot help but moan softly.

 

“Come on,  _ yes _ . That’s it. For me, Meredith.  _ Come for me _ .”

 

She does,  _ oh _ she  _ does _ , thighs jumping closed and back arching hard off the bark, screaming her release into his mouth and clawing tracks through the moss below her. Meredith is tormented by the neverending bursts of pleasure wracking her body; she’s so sure she’ll faint, or die, or both, her heart is beating so fast. Orsino gasps against her ear, as if he had come alongside her, as if he had coupled her right against the tree.

 

Affection swells in her chest and she lets it, for the brief time that this afterglow will last. She even lets herself think that something might come of this, that they might be able to  _ make _ something out of this.

 

But she knows better.

 

When her tunneling vision widens again, when colors stop being quite so vibrant in her sight, she comes back to Orsino cleaning off his fingers by sucking at them, and if she were ten years younger, oh. She sits up straighter with a grunt, only now realising the uncomfortable sit he had forced her to when Annwil came by, and sighs.

 

She supposes he’ll want the favour returned, but she’s not sure how much longer they can spend down here, nor is she actually sure how to. Meredith mindlessly reaches between his legs, squeezing the hard bulge she finds firmly but gently.

 

The way he arches forward like a bow drawn taut shocks her, hissing a groan through his teeth, beating his fist against her steel pauldron once. Meredith stares up at him in wide-eyed surprise, too wrung out by her own pleasure to protest or move away when he grinds against her palm. Once, twice, then she feels him soften.

 

“Did you--”

  
  
“Yes, Meredith. I did. You can laugh about it later.”

 

“No, I-- I just-- I didn’t actually know how to.”

 

“How to do what?” he asks, resting his forehead against the tree with his eyes closed.

 

“Return the favour.”

 

“Ah. Well. We’ll worry about that next time,” he pants, flapping a hand dismissively.  _ Next time _ , he says, as if this potentially-ruinous act should ever be repeated.

 

“Next time,” she affirms.


End file.
